Who is Dennis Phillips

When the 2008 WSOP Main Event was whittled from 6,844 participants to the final 'November Nine', the anticipation to unveil a champion emanated from the rafters of the Rio Casino's Amazon Room. So, whilst we wait out the agonizing 117-day break until the final table actually occurs, let's take an in-depth look at the current 2008 WSOP Main Event chip leader, Dennis Phillips.

Here are the official chip counts and seating assignments for the 2008 November Nine:

Seat 1: Dennis Phillips - 26,295,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis - 10,210,000
Seat 3: Ylon Schwartz - 12,525,000
Seat 4: Scott Montgomery - 19,690,000
Seat 5: Darus Suharto - 12,520,000
Seat 6: Chino Rheem - 10,230,000
Seat 7: Ivan Demidov - 24,400,000
Seat 8: Kelly Kim - 2,620,000
Seat 9: Peter Eastgate - 18,375,000

If Phillips had his way, he would have already finished the WSOP ME. But under a new WSOP ME format, the World Series is waiting for the final table for four months. "I am so hyper and ready to go. I've been on a roll here lately. I would love to continue it," said Phillips. "But I understand it.%u2026I don't have any problem with it."

Dennis Phillips plays poker for fun and said he enjoys sitting around and watching the Cardinals play.

Despite his regular guy reputation and the fact that he is much older than the other eight finalists, he considers himself a wild card in the competition.

As the oldest member of the celebrated "November Nine," the nine finalists in the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event who will return this November to battle for the title, it's a bit surprising to learn that Dennis Phillips has only been playing poker for four years. Still, he'll be going into the final table of the biggest poker event of his life with the deepest chip stack at the table. Phillips will be starting with 26,295,000 chips, two million more than second-place Ivan Demidov and well above the table average of just over 15 million. Phillips came out of obscurity to the lead the November Nine, having won his seat to the big show in a $200 satellite at the St. Louis Harrah's in his hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. He has had two prior cashes in WSOP circuit events in 2007, finishing in seventh place in Event #14 and ninth place in Event #11 at Tunica, Mississippi for a total of $4,578, a fraction of the $900,700 he has already been guaranteed for his final-table appearance. But with the lead, Phillips has his eyes on the first-place prize money of over $9.1 million, the coveted gold bracelet and the placing of his name alongside some of the greatest players in poker history.

Phillips may be the quintessential everyman. He was born in Quincy, Illinois, but raised on a dairy farm in Clayton, Illinois. He attended Central High School, where he was class president for two years, a member of the National Honor Society, and lettered in three sports. He then went on to Blackburn College, in Illinois, where he graduated with a degree in Political Science as well as a minor in Mathematics and Economics.

He has worked as a travel agent, a salesman for a book publisher, and even owned and operated his own dairy farm in Illinois. After the final table was set, he went right back to work as a commercial account manager for Broadway Truck Centers in St. Louis, Missouri, whose logo he proudly wore on his shirt throughout the Main Event. Of his job, Phillips explained to USA Today back in July, "I sell dump trucks, flatbeds, service bodies, pickups, whatever a contractor would need, basically." He has told reporters that he intends to go back to work after his final-table appearance.

In an era of the bad boys, Phillips appears to be a good guy. Like most everyone else nearing the Main Event final table, he added a poker website logo on his shirt. But before signing an agreement with PokerStars, he urged Stars to match the 1% of his winnings he has pledged to donate to Prevent Cancer Foundation's Bad Beat on Cancer, poker pro Phil Gordon's charity. But Phillips' head apparently wasn't for sale, as he continued to wear his St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap throughout the tournament.

As for his donation of a portion of his winnings, Phillips said, "Charity involvement has always been an important part of my life, and hopefully more poker players and final-table participants with follow suit in upcoming poker circuits."

Phillips has been giving back to his community, having appeared at two separate charity poker event sponsored by the insideSTL.com Poker Tournament, where he signed autographs and played poker. The first raised money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation and the second event was held to raise money for the family of a fallen firefighter. Phillips played at the WPT events at the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi, before Hurricane Gustav cut that trip short. Phillips will also be attending his first overseas poker tournament, having obtained his first passport so he could fly to England for the London leg of the European Poker Tour starting later this month.

Phillips is taking the final-table appearance very seriously. He recently announced that he had hired The Oracle Consulting Firm founded by Roy "The Oracle" Winston and Joe McGowan to coach him. Of the move, Phillips said at the time, "I'm confident in my game and don't intend to change it," said Phillips. "But I'm also smart enough to know that you can always learn more."